Just a few comments to your post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by weinhold  As for the hope of resurrection, it may be worth considering whether we can derive such a notion from Job, and whether there is evidence that Job himself had any notion of it. Such an investigation is outside my discipline, but Job 14 seems to be an indication: [/i] |
I think Job 19:25-27 is clear about what Job understood in regard to the resurrection:
"For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."
Quote:
Originally Posted by weinhold The pedagogical objective of Job's suffering into truth and God's vindication of His worthiness to be worshipped both seem to allow the sacrifice of Job's children. They are consumed in God's use. They are considered not worth preserving or salvaging.[/i] |
I think you are placing far too much emphasis on the physical aspect of our life, rather than the eternal. Physical death is not a curse, nor a punishment for the children of God, but rather a blessing. God was ultimately, and immediately, preserving Job's children for all eternity, by removing them from this temporal earth. Read how our reformed forefathers viewed death. If we were to see it thus, we would realize that death for Job's first 10 children was not a discarding of their lives as things unworthy of salvaging, but a blessing, and a reward
In 1665, Thomas Brooks wrote
"Our life in this world is made up . . .
of troubles and trials,
of calamities and miseries,
of crosses and losses,
of reproaches and disgraces.
Death frees the Christian from all these things.
It wipes away all tears from his eyes, it turns . . .
his miseries into mercies,
his crosses into crowns, and
his earthly hell into a glorious heaven!
When a godly man dies--he shall never more
be haunted, tempted and buffeted by Satan!
"Death," says one, "which was before the devil's
sergeant to drag us to hell; has now become the
Lord's gentle usher to conduct us to heaven!"
For a saint to die, is for a saint to be eternally happy.
Death is but the entrance into glorious life. That is not
death but life--which joins the dying man to Christ!
Death will blow the bud of grace into the flower of
glory!
Death is not the death of the man--but the death of
his sin. When a believer dies--his sin dies with him.
As death came in by sin--so sin goes out by death.
Death kills sin--which bred it.....
Death does for a godly person, that which all ordinances
could never do, and which all their duties could never do,
and which all their graces could never do. It immediately
frees them from . . .
all their sins,
all their sorrows,
all their tears,
all their temptations,
all their oppressions,
all their oppositions,
all their vexations!"